Chance to hit. Something seems to be completely off.!

[Alfie]

This is a real gamebreaker for me, if the game tells you you have a chance at doing something and gives you an exact percentage chance, we have to be able to trust that info!

First off i really like the game and the gameplay, really great and i have been playing on the classic difficulty with ironman on. Even though i cant prove that the % chance of hitting a target shown is wrong since you cant just argue that all shots can miss unless its a 100% chance, i now have a solid feeling that the percentage is shown is not correct.

One of several examples:
4 of my units tried firing at an alien, one had a 65% since he had it flanked the others 45% since the alien was in half cover to them. all of these shots missed. Then next turn the alien blasts one of my guys away, this guy was in full cover, which is acceptable lucky shot i suppose. Now next round i fire 3 times with my remaining soldiers, one guy still has 65% the others 45% all 3 miss. Then the little ♥♥♥♥♥♥ who killed my guy gets another turn and hammers one of my guys with bullets doing 2 dmg, he survived luckily, but panicked and went into cover.

After that i ran a lot closer with my other 2 guys and got the alien down. but really something just seems odd about these % chances. i had 2x65% chances and 5x45% chances all miss, and this is just one of many examples where a seemingly easy fight turns into a bullethell, where i suffer all the losses.

My point with this is if a game tells you you have a 65% chance at hitting i need to have 65% not 45% or whatever the chance really is because of some hidden difficulty modifier to my hit chance. If they lower my accuracy because of the harder difficulty then show me that percentage, then i can take the real odds into consideration, and actually play according to these values!

Either im very unlucky or the info shown on screen is incorrect.

I may just be paranoid but just to show what the odds are for me to miss with my 7 shots in a row:

0.35*0.35*0.55*0.55*0.55*0.55*0.55*100 = 0,6 % chance

To put in a better perspective my chance of one of those bullets hitting would be 99.4%.


Im interested in hearing if someone knows if the values shown are correct, and i am mistaken, or if there really is something wrong with that percentage shown. If thats the case i think this really needs to be changed, either officially or with a mod.

[Red Phantom]

No one really has anything to tell you about this, as far as facts go.

A few people are complaining about it, but it mostly seems like they throw up a thread after missing one string or so of shots like you have. There isn't any actual evidence to support the idea that something is off.

All I can tell you is that the chances of you missing at least one string of shots during an entire playthrough is significant. A 0.6% chance to miss is still a chance to miss, and it is very likely to happen as the number of shots you take over the course of your play time increases.

I personally doubt that there is anything wrong here. I have never experienced something that made me think the numbers were off. So far they have been behaving as I would expect, and I've only missed one 97% shot that I can remember.

I also doubt that you are not being shown the correct information, thought there is a glitch where hovering the cursor over the alien head icons displays the wrong information. The thing is that the system for calculating your chance to hit is ridiculously simple and you could check the math yourself if you wanted to.

I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that people are underestimating the amount of odd things that will happen when you 'roll the dice' thousands of times.

[Penfold]

I have had a problem too. I was trying an old but frowned apon stratagy of reloading (not playing ironman) So I will cut to it..
With my sniper i had an 56% hit chance useing headshot. I missed and reloaded the save about 8 times before getting fustrated and taking the shot at another alien with a 32% chance (with the same soldier) and hit it first time.. I can say the game cheats.. if the game does not want you to hit you won't..

[Red Phantom]

Originally posted by Penfold:

I have had a problem too. I was trying an old but frowned apon stratagy of reloading (not playing ironman) So I will cut to it..
With my sniper i had an 56% hit chance useing headshot. I missed and reloaded the save about 8 times before getting fustrated and taking the shot at another alien with a 32% chance (with the same soldier) and hit it first time.. I can say the game cheats.. if the game does not want you to hit you won't..

Oh man.

That is because every round a series of random numbers is generated and every roll you take is compared to them in sequence. So the next number in the sequence was higher than 56, and it never changed when you reloaded. They decided to save the rolls into your file so that you couldn't miss a 56% chance shot with your sniper, then reload until you hit ;)

[Penfold]

Originally posted by PrometheanFrankenstein:

Originally posted by Penfold:

I have had a problem too. I was trying an old but frowned apon stratagy of reloading (not playing ironman) So I will cut to it..
With my sniper i had an 56% hit chance useing headshot. I missed and reloaded the save about 8 times before getting fustrated and taking the shot at another alien with a 32% chance (with the same soldier) and hit it first time.. I can say the game cheats.. if the game does not want you to hit you won't..

Oh man.

That is because every round a series of random numbers is generated and every roll you take is compared to them in sequence. So the next number in the sequence was higher than 56, and it never changed when you reloaded. They decided to save the rolls into your file so that you couldn't miss a 56% chance shot with your sniper, then reload until you hit ;)

Oh well at least I know why now.. :)

[Simon Knight]

I've had guys hit 20% chances, and guys miss 90% chances. That's Xcom baby!

[Alfie]

Thanks for the input promethean.

I agree these things can and should happen its one of the core mechanics in this type of game. Sometimes youre lucky and get a hit at low odds, sometimes you miss on a shot at good odds.

As long as those % shown is actually what the game is calculating with i dont mind at all. And thats basically the info i was hoping to get from this post. I hope youre right and its just me being unlucky. :)

[Kyutaru]

It's also due to how RNG systems work on a computer. But it applies to all but the most advanced systems that simply aren't used for video games.

People have seen 20-sided dice roll six 1s in a row... in real life. Somehow I don't think the universe is cheating.

[Alfie]

Yes, i know how chances work. But if you continue to roll 1's on a 20 sided dice you may find yourself questioning whether this dice fair, or filled with lead to make it hit 1 more often than the others.

Thats simply what im asking here, if someone know whether the shown accuracy is the one the game uses. It is rather simple to deduct something from the base accuracy, and it could be a design choice used on higher difficulty, and not show it to the player.

And thats all im asking so dont give more of that "there is always a chance to miss unless it shows 100% accuracy", i think that fact has already been established and agreed upon.

[TTGeek]

On one of the threads the other day, someone complained about this too. another person had the same suspecion but he made a spreadsheet and plotted in all the shots he made for 3 hours. The averages of all these shots aligned up pretty nicely (according to him).
So based on this, i don't think there is a problem.

[Alfie]

Thank you TTgeek, that is actually a good idea, I think i will try with a spreadsheet as well just for my own amusement and ease of mind.

[RavDakar]

I play on the 2 hardes level, and I have missed on 4 x 100% chance hits. I did some testing with this game: one round every one of my characters (6 of them) hade 60% or more chance of hiting. They all missed. So I loaded the game 20 times, and did the exactly the same, And every one missed Every time. Then I tried a mission where I wiped. Every one was dead. So I loaded the mission from the start, and did different moves. Every time I wiped, and my guys died I same ways. This game is fixed In my mind. The Ai rolls at the start of the game, and your chance of hiting don’t mean a thing. Its predetermined based on what you did earlier and a pre-defined numbers of hit an loses you are alowed, just giving the illusions of bad luck

Ps there are ways to "cheat" the system. with Area dmg wepons, only way i found to chead death, blow them up

[megacoosboy]

i've missed a 100% shot at point blank with an assault twice in the three playthrus i've done. I just accept it and move on. big woop

[Simon Knight]

Originally posted by Da`kar:

I play on the 2 hardes level, and I have missed on 4 x 100% chance hits. I did some testing with this game: one round every one of my characters (6 of them) hade 60% or more chance of hiting. They all missed. So I loaded the game 20 times, and did the exactly the same, And every one missed Every time. Then I tried a mission where I wiped. Every one was dead. So I loaded the mission from the start, and did different moves. Every time I wiped, and my guys died I same ways. This game is fixed In my mind. The Ai rolls at the start of the game, and your chance of hiting don’t mean a thing. Its predetermined based on what you did earlier and a pre-defined numbers of hit an loses you are alowed, just giving the illusions of bad luck

That is simply not true. In an example I posted in another thread I had an assault that had a 56% chance of hitting an alien. When I first started testing he hit the 56% every time I reloaded and did the same thing. Then in another reload I tried moving up my heavy and using his holo-targeting. Moved my assault to the exact same spot where I hit before but now it was a 66% chance to hit but he missed every time I did the same sequence of events. To further test it, I had the assault move up a second alien and attack and hit with a 57% chance. When I had my heavy use holo-targeting on the first alien again and moved my assault up to the second alien, he missed the 57% chance. The game generates the seed at the start of each round and saves the seed number, and using something that could effect the aim for the entire squad like holo-targeting seems to make the game use a secondary seed number that is also saved at the start of each round. Nothing in the game is pre-determined, there are always other choices, such as through all of this I could have moved my assault closer to the first alien and flanked him and kill him, I could have had him pull back to the back and let my sniper in overwatch have a crack at him, or have my other assault use run n gun and flank the alien with him.

[TTGeek]

Originally posted by Da`kar:

I play on the 2 hardes level, and I have missed on 4 x 100% chance hits. I did some testing with this game: one round every one of my characters (6 of them) hade 60% or more chance of hiting. They all missed. So I loaded the game 20 times, and did the exactly the same, And every one missed Every time. Then I tried a mission where I wiped. Every one was dead. So I loaded the mission from the start, and did different moves. Every time I wiped, and my guys died I same ways. This game is fixed In my mind. The Ai rolls at the start of the game, and your chance of hiting don’t mean a thing. Its predetermined based on what you did earlier and a pre-defined numbers of hit an loses you are alowed, just giving the illusions of bad luck

The game is not predetermined. allthou the game deviates from it's predecessor by not getting a new random seed every time it pulls a random number. This results in you getting the same "random" number (eg. same outcome of shot) if you load the game and try again.
The way random numbers work in computers is that there are predefined lists of mathmatically chosen random numbers. The software then uses a seed to get one of these list of numbers. Ofthen a programmer would use the millisecond value of when the level is loaded or something like that.

There are companies who specialise in generating truely random numbers, like reading values off an atom and supplying these as random numbers. The thing with random is, that often what seems random isn't random if you look at it hard enough. I guess science haven't figured out everything about the atom yet.

[RavDakar]

Originally posted by TTGeek:

Originally posted by Da`kar:

I play on the 2 hardes level, and I have missed on 4 x 100% chance hits. I did some testing with this game: one round every one of my characters (6 of them) hade 60% or more chance of hiting. They all missed. So I loaded the game 20 times, and did the exactly the same, And every one missed Every time. Then I tried a mission where I wiped. Every one was dead. So I loaded the mission from the start, and did different moves. Every time I wiped, and my guys died I same ways. This game is fixed In my mind. The Ai rolls at the start of the game, and your chance of hiting don’t mean a thing. Its predetermined based on what you did earlier and a pre-defined numbers of hit an loses you are alowed, just giving the illusions of bad luck

The game is not predetermined. allthou the game deviates from it's predecessor by not getting a new random seed every time it pulls a random number. This results in you getting the same "random" number (eg. same outcome of shot) if you load the game and try again.
The way random numbers work in computers is that there are predefined lists of mathmatically chosen random numbers. The software then uses a seed to get one of these list of numbers. Ofthen a programmer would use the millisecond value of when the level is loaded or something like that.

There are companies who specialise in generating truely random numbers, like reading values off an atom and supplying these as random numbers. The thing with random is, that often what seems random isn't random if you look at it hard enough. I guess science haven't figured out everything about the atom yet.

So people say: but how do you explane "Then I tried a mission where I wiped. Every one was dead. So I loaded the mission from the start, and did different moves. Every time I wiped, and my guys died I same ways." Notice the part "loaded the mission from the start" and "did different moves" with same result. they died in different places, but end result the same.

Let me guess the answer: its not predetermined its just bad luck, stop whining.

Just think about this part. If the produsers have put in "guiding strings" for the outcome then its a Fixed game! its not chance, its fixed. maybe not much. but it sure as hell is not the % chance you see on your screen